


Bluebonnets

by AlmaMeDuele



Series: Overwatch: Glimpses [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff without Plot, M/M, McHanzo Week, On the Road with Jesse and Hanzo, Or Very Little Plot That Is, Self-Indulgent, Two Middle-Aged Loners Picking Flowers in Texas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-09-09 16:49:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8900125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlmaMeDuele/pseuds/AlmaMeDuele
Summary: On the road during a mission, the gentlemen make a pit stop so one of them can experience a prettier side of the Lone Star state.





	

**Author's Note:**

> McHanzo Week Prompt for Day 1 -- "first time."  
> Content: mention of alcohol/drinking.

They were two days into their undercover mission when the hot May weather convinced them to ditch train hopping and drive. McCree and Hanzo loaded up on snacks and supplies before committing to the the long haul across Texas in a rented hover-truck. Eight-hundred and fifty miles on Hyperlane 10 would cost them nine hours, give or take, inflated by a few traffic snarls on their way out of Houston. Hanzo seemed content with the change in travel at first, but after the first two hours on the road (and one disc into _Johnny Cash’s Greatest Hits_ ), he started to doubt.

“Is it really so far from the eastern border to El Paso?” Hanzo asked, seated shotgun, frowning down at the mission docket on his cell phone.

“Yup,” replied McCree, relaxed in the driver’s seat, feet propped up on the dash as he shelled a handful of sunflower seeds. “Even with the auto-driver on, it’s a helluva ride.”

“The train would have been half the time.”

“Accountin’ for stops, yeah--” McCree paused to chew a mouthful of seeds “--but the downside is, we’d still be ridin’ on the back of a hot train rather than relaxing in this fine air-conditioning.”

“I should have brought sunscreen,” Hanzo sighed, glowering at the radio as the music tinnily hopped along.

McCree grinned at his partner. “Or a hat.”

“It is just as they say,” grunted Hanzo, shutting off the phone screen, sliding on his sunglasses. “Everything is bigger in Texas, even the distance needed to escape it.”

“We can get back on the train if you want,” McCree offered. “There’s a station in New Braunfels, but it’ll probably delay us a coupla hours.”

“Not worth it.” Hanzo leaned back and stared out the window. “The Deadlock caravan is set to pass through Tucson with their weapons in two days. The sooner we get there, the better. I would rather--”

McCree noticed the pause. “Rather what?”

“The side of the road.” Hanzo sat up and pointed out the truck window. “Look.”

The gunslinger peered over. Flanking the two-tier hyperlane were spans of vivid cerulean, whizzing by. Covering the green fields and hills beyond, as far as either of them could see.

“Oh, hey,” crowed McCree. “Bluebonnets!”

“Bluebonnets,” Hanzo repeated, squinting, lifting his sunglasses.

“Yeah. It’s a wildflower. Grows all over Texas.”

“Ah,” Hanzo remarked, intrigued. “Yes, I thought it must be a flower. There is so much blue!”

“Lotsa blue,” McCree agreed. “Kind of a big deal out here, it’s sort of a regional symbol. All sorts of myths and legends behind 'em, too."

"Really?"

"They pop up every spring, big huge fields of ‘em. Spreads about as far as any place that gets rain.”

“All across the state?”

“Most of it.”

“Are they cultivated to grow that way?” Hanzo asked, tapping on his phone. McCree didn’t need to look over to guess his partner was looking up the flowery phenomenon on the internet. “There must be a program in place to spread them, yes?”

“Prob’ly was one before and after the Crisis,” McCree said, picking a stray sunflower hull out of his beard. He flicked it back into the bag of snacks. “Or maybe they’re just real hardy lil’ plants that take a lickin’ and keep comin’ back, no matter the damage.”

“ _Lupinus texensis,_ ” Hanzo recited aloud from his phone. “‘The Texas lupine.’” He looked up at McCree. “They only grow here? Not in New Mexico?”

“As far as I know, yup.”

Hanzo glanced out at the rolling blue stripes along the hyperlane. Softly, he said, “how unique.”

McCree mused on the archer’s comment for a few seconds before rolling up the bag of sunflower seeds and swinging his boots back to the floorboards. He keyed in the code to turn the auto-driver back to manual. “Lil’ more than that.”

“What are you doing?” Hanzo asked, startled.

“Gettin’ off at the next exit.”

Tersely. “Why?”

“First rule of road-trippin’ with Jesse McCree: ‘always make sure you stop regularly to stretch your legs.’”

Dubiously now. “We are stopping?”

“It just occurred to me,” McCree said knowingly, “that this’s your first time visitin’ the Lone Star state while it’s all in splendor. Reckon you oughtta have a close-up.”

Hanzo took off his glasses. “Jesse, we have to be in Tucson in twenty-four hours.”

“Relax, honey, that’s plenty of time.”

“Not just be _in_ Tucson,” Hanzo continued, gesturing at the off-ramp signs as the truck slowed down, “ _set up_ in Tucson, be ready to intercept the Deadlock men coming through, check the weapons once we’ve detained the gangsters, and then send the reports back to Winston--”

McCree veered down a two-lane road that snaked into the hills. “Thirty minutes, tops, sweet-pea. It’ll be worth it.”

Hanzo craned around to scan the pavement dwindling behind them. “How far are we going?”

“Enough so you can get a good look.”

\---

The field was two miles off the hyperlane, fenced in by wooden posts and rusty barbed wire. They got out of the truck, locked the doors, wandered up the gravelly side of the road. Jesse checked for surveillance drones and monitor ‘bots; he found none, but kept Peacekeeper loaded and holstered just in case.

Lured by the sight, Hanzo drifted a few feet from Jesse before crouching to inspect a cluster of bluebonnets buoying a fat black butterfly. It circled their petals -- dusted white at the top with bruises of violet -- before fluttering to another flower.

“They have no smell,” he commented, thumbing a pale green stem heavy with petals.

“Not really,” Jesse replied, squinting across the field under the shade of his hat brim. “Mostly just the sight of them that gets you, I guess.”

Hanzo pointed into the thick of the field. “There are red ones?”

Jesse glanced down; fiery crimson stalks were dotted throughout the sea of blossoms, like tongues of fire.

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s a different type of plant. It’s got a pretty name, I think it’s called a--”

“ _Castilleja_ ,” Hanzo prompted. Gazing into his phone screen, looking up more information. “The ‘Indian paintbrush.’”

Jesse beamed, warm as the summer sun. “Lookit you, pronouncin’ _en español_ like a natural.”

Hanzo regarded him with a measured smile -- one that Jesse immediately recognized as a hallmark of his guarded fondness.

Cheered, Jesse tested the barbed-wire by one of the fence posts. “C’mon, sweet-pea. Let’s go for a lil’ walk.”

“Wait,” Hanzo blurted, pocketing his phone. “Into the field?”

“Yeah. Why not? You got boots on, dontcha?”

Hanzo tensed. “We would be trespassing.”

"That's never stopped us before."

"Yes," Hanzo agreed flatly, "but this is an undercover mission. Our identities might be compromised if we are questioned or investigated, and thus we cannot afford to be caught." 

“Ain’t no one out here for miles, Hanzo, we’ll be alright to take a lil’ stroll.”

“I should get my bow, in case we are seen--”

But the gunslinger pushed down on the wire just enough to swing one long leg over. “Mind your clothes when you’re hoppin’ over, don’t want you to tear ‘em up.”

Wordlessly Hanzo watched Jesse -- a tall streak of leather, red wool, and warm skin -- as he lit a cigarillo and ambled into the blooms. Nothing could corral Jesse McCree; if he wanted to go for a walk in the flowers, it would take more than a fence to keep him out.

He sighed, hopped the post, and slipped after him. “Let’s not go too far.”

“We won’t,” Jesse assured him. “Just enough to get an eyeful.”

They trekked out over the pasture through a hot afternoon. A few spotted cows lingered in the distance behind a second fence; wary of ranch-hands or drones, they diverted to circle a small thicket of live oak trees shading the field. Hanzo marveled at the hints of lush springtime amid Texas grit, places where the ground felt soft only to give way to pebbly, unfertile soil. There was a dried creekbed riddled with limestone, white as chalk. A few brown hills scalloped the horizon, sandwiched between spreads of blue pasture and a bluer sky. Cicadas buzzed in low, swelling chorus; the pair walked through nodding blooms in silence punctuated by birdsong and the occasional _zizz_ of a fleeing grasshopper.

Hanzo hovered with his phone above a tall clump of bluebonnets, taking pictures. “I did not know you were fond of flowers.”

“Oh, yeah,” Jesse drawled. “Me and Mother Nature get along pretty well, after all those years driftin’.”

“We have holidays back home regarding flowers,” Hanzo said. “There are viewings for the cherry blossom trees every spring. They are--” he paused, hunting for a word “--exquisite to behold.”

Jesse shot him a grin over his shoulder. “Heard a lil’ ‘bout that once.”

Hanzo looked up. “Have you?”

“ _Sakura_ , right? Pink flowers? Every picture I’ve seen of ‘em’s just ‘bout the prettiest thing you could imagine.”

Pleased, Hanzo rubbed a bead of sweat off his neck. “Images are nothing compared to the real thing. They fall so thick that the ground turns white, like snow.” Wistfully, he gazed at the sky. “The experience is a reminder that life is fleeting, but beautiful. It is unlike anything else. Everyone I have ever known claims that seeing them touches the soul, and cannot be forgotten.”

Jesse turned and spread out his arms, gesturing as if to say  _just like this_. “Reckon this doesn’t come close, but it’s still nice, yeah?”

“Indeed,” Hanzo stated. And then, as he peered curiously at the gunslinger, “did you see these often? Before, when you were Deadlock -- or with Blackwatch?”

“More when I was deep in my bounty huntin’ days,” answered Jesse. “Me an’ Reyes got to play tourist when we were on missions ‘round the States, but drifter life had some charms of its own.”

Hanzo smirked. “Is that what this is?”

Jesse tapped ash off his cigarillo. “Hm?”

“The flowers. Pulling off the road, coming out here. Did you mean to charm me?”

Jesse turned to face him, cheeks flushed, teeth flashing. Grinning wide, bearded and handsome. “Maybe.”

Hanzo pushed past him, softly snorting. “Maybe?”

“I might’ve been tryin’ to charm you a lil’, yeah.”

He combed his fingertips down McCree’s mechanical forearm, affectionate. “Do you think it worked?”

“You tell me.”

Hanzo reached for the gunslinger’s cigarillo, slipped it from his lips, and took a few puffs. He fitted it back in Jesse’s mouth (which was slack), brushed a lock of hair from his brows (which were raised) and purred while gazing into his wide dark eyes, “a little.”

“Well, here,” Jesse stooped, rummaged through the clump of flowers, and stood with a single bloom outstretched to Hanzo. Its five-pointed leaves gleamed mint-green, like pale stars. “Lemme try harder, sweetheart.”

“Hm?”

“A lil’ souvenir. Your first time in the bluebonnets.”

Hanzo leaned forward to peer at the petals. “The website said it was illegal to pick them.”

Jesse chortled, a wry _ha-ha._ “Well, shoot. Don’t tell anybody, darlin’. Wouldn’t want anyone to think I’d ever broken the law before.”

Hanzo accepted the flower, tucked it into a pocket of his shirt,and crouched down. Slyly he mused, “no, we certainly wouldn’t want that.”

“Whatcha doin’ down there?”

The archer plucked a red sprig, rose and extended it out to Jesse. “Being a criminal.”

Jesse softened as he twirled the Indian paintbrush between his thumb and forefinger. “Guilty as charged.”

Hanzo thumbed the brim of his hat up to give Jesse a brief, bristly kiss. Jesse leaned in, tried to chase it, lengthen it -- but Hanzo pulled away.

“Consider it a promise, then,” he murmured. “For showing me this, one day, I will take you to see cherry blossoms.”

Jesse brightened. “You will?”

“Yes.”

“All the way over in Hanamura?” Jesse asked, smiling from ear to ear. “The real deal?”

“Indeed. We will marvel at the trees, and eat, and drink.”

“Drinkin’ sounds good to me.”

“Good,” Hanzo stepped back to snap a photo of the gunslinger against a backdrop of blue, holding the red _castilleja_. “Because we will likely do a lot of that.”

Laughing, Jesse spared the archer a tip of his hat. “ _Now_ who’s charmed?”

\---

They climbed back into the truck, hit the ignition, and prepped the nav system to return to the hyperlane. Hanzo reached for Jesse’s hand; Jesse gave it a squeeze and held on, lacing their fingers.

The blooms sat on the dash as they drove, splashes of red and blue with criss-crossed stems. Johnny Cash bounced along on the radio, cheekily wistful -- a song about going to jail for picking flowers.

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to any readers who live or have lived in Texas. It's not home for me anymore, and I don't particularly miss living there, but there are parts of it I've never been able to shake off -- namely, the sides of the highways every spring.  
> \- References: [bluebonnets](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lupinus_texensis), [Indian paintbrushes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castilleja_indivisa). [Johnny Cash's song.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIFQkbhTIGk)  
> \- McCree is not canonically from Texas (at least, from what we know so far), but I can't imagine he's not familiar with some of the sights and sounds around the Southwest.  
> \- Thanks to Aki for the joke about 'first time in the bluebonnets' and the accompanying doodle the other day, which inspired this.   
> \- It's no longer illegal to pick Texas wildflowers, but maybe after the Omnic Crisis conservationists made the myth into an actual law.  
> \- I am working on a few other chapter fics right now so I may not get to all the weekly prompts, but I kind of wanted to throw this one in.


End file.
